Sailing San Francisco Bay

Katie and I went sailing on the Bay on Saturday. It was my first time on a sailboat, which is crazy considering Marina spent 20 years sailing (1974-1994) and my mom spent her early teenage years on a boat. The captain was on a tight schedule, so we went strait to Angel Island and back. It was beautiful and invigorating, but also really intense and difficult to photograph. There was so much light and reflection, a polarizing filter would have helped. I also got so much spray on my UV filter that after a while all of my photos were coming out hazy. The last image was taken sans filter. We found $20 discount tickets on Amazon, but I don't think the regular $45 tickets would have been worth it. But it was a great way for us to catch up now that we're both busy with work and school. This semester is going by fast (it's nice thinking in semesters again). The light is changing, and it's starting to feel like fall. It's almost October, and one of my best friends is getting married in ten days! I am so excited for them, and I'm excited to see everyone and be in Willits again. I love looking forward to things in the near future. It makes everything better.

Assignment: Self Portrait

I was dragging my feet on this one. I had absolutely no interest in photographing myself.

I now see the importance of being able to use myself as a subject. The human element adds so much interest to an image, and sometimes there won't be anyone else around. It was an interesting study on reflection. I love how capturing an exposure though a window creates the look of a double negative, and it gives an image a ghostly quality. Also, the distortion of reflections in automobiles is really interesting. And hair. Hair is the most interesting thing about most of my photos. I had an English Literature professor who hated it when we used the word "interesting." Good thing this isn't about literature.

Marina in the Rose Garden

Portrait Assignment: Photograph someone you know and love. All prints must be in black and white.

Marina and I ventured to the Berkeley Rose Garden for this shoot. We got there just after 4 pm, and from the top of the garden we could see the Golden Gate Bridge, the headlands, and the bay, which reflected liquid gold. Inside the garden the light was incredible. It is a terraced amphitheater enclosed by trees, and the perfect physical and symbolic place to photograph my beautiful grandmother. She was a terrific model: patient, dynamic, calm, and responsive. The location was also ideal. Shady but still bright, lots of visual interest, meandering paths and a variety of backgrounds. Sometimes you just get lucky.

Scavenger Hunt

I'm really excited to be back in school taking a photography class at City College of San Francisco. Our first assignment was a scavenger hunt. We were given a list of 45 things to capture that included concrete subjects, such as something in our neighborhood, as well as abstractions, such as "our greatest fear." It was an exercise for us to practice using our DSLR cameras in manual mode, which [confession] I have never done before. Now that the training wheels are off, I feel completely liberated. These are some of my favorites. 1, 2, 3, 4: Castro, San Francisco; 5, 6, 7, 8, 9: Tilden Park Botanical Gardens, Berkeley; 10, 11, 12, 13: my neighborhood, Oakland.

Blackberry Picking

Last weekend we visited Marina in Petaluma to pick blackberries. First, we toured her garden. It was hot and sunny in Petaluma, and the combination of harsh light and an industrial background created a dramatic setting.

To find more ripe berries we headed west towards Tomales, which was fogged in and chilly, but the light was beautiful.

One of the best things about living in Oakland is that with a vehicle we are able to leave the Bay when we want to. I value the moments I get to share with Marina, and I love that she and Jeffery have such a close bond. Marina touches peoples' lives in such a positive way, and I feel lucky that I get to share her with the people in my life. In all we picked about 12 liters of blackberries and have been eating them with waffles, yogurt, ice cream, and in smoothies. Jam is also on the horizon. Stay tuned for our adventures in canning.

Oakland Athletics

We watched the Rays beat the A's last week. Despite the loss, it was a hot and beautiful day in Oakland. We bought $14 value tickets, which included $6 worth of food concessions. Jeff had a chili dog, I had nachos. We were behind top plate all the way at the top, and when the hundreds of girl scouts surrounding us left in the 7th inning, we had the top deck to ourselves. So it was nice and quiet and we found some shade and you just can't beat that view.

The Golden Hour

It's been nearly a month since we left San Francisco and moved into our new apartment in Oakland. We love it. Kitty loves it too. There is so much room. And so much light. When the sun sets behind the neighboring houses, the telephone wires and the trees outside light up, and before it gets dark, everything is golden. I feel really lucky. I keep thinking it's too good to be true. But then I am reminded that we endured two years living in downtown San Francisco, walking past crackheads and their filth every day, and hearing sirens blaring all night. Our apartment was so small that there wasn't enough room for bedroom furniture or golf clubs or a second bike, and so we slept on a mattress on the floor, and Jeff couldn't go golfing and we couldn't go on bike rides together. And now we can. And it's laughable to think anyone would pay so much to live there, especially when what we have now is a 20 minute BART ride away. But we did. We wanted to live in the City. And now we know better.

I've started running in the mornings. Most of the houses in our neighborhood have flowers or vegetable gardens in their front yards. Right now the morning glories and thunbergia and passion vines are exploding, and I had no idea that bougainvillea came in so many different shades of red and fuchsia and purple. Artichokes are flowering, and their thistles are florescent periwinkle. There is a park close by, Dover Park, and the entire perimeter of the park is planted with vegetables. It is so beautiful. It does really make me want a yard of our own, and that's the next step. But it is so nice to be in a place where we can live comfortably for a few years and be able to save for our dream home. I feel like Jeffery and I have entered a new stage in our lives and it's only getting better.

Biking in Oakland

The other day I borrowed Jeff's bike to run errands, and now I can't wait to get a bike of my own. We live in Temescal, which is close to Rockridge. North Oakland so quickly turns into Berkeley, and it's flat and the streets are wide and shady, perfect for biking. We've been grocery shopping at Berkeley Bowl, and it has revolutionized our lives. The produce department is enormous. There are so many options, and there's a clearance bin where you can get an entire bag of tomatos or avocados or eggplant for 99 cents! The other day we made a large bowl of guacamole, and even though the avocados were mushy on the outside, they were perfect on the inside. We've also been making our own pizza and pasta sauces. I can't say it enough, I really love living in Oakland. 

When Life Gives You Lemons

...make lemon poppyseed cookies!

Jeffery did some gardening work for a woman with a Meyer lemon tree and came home with his backpack full of lemons. In the last couple weeks we have already made lemon poppyseed muffins, lemon bars, and Arnold Palmers. When I worked in the Inner Sunset in SF,  I would go to the Beanery every day and get myself a lemon poppyseed cookie. They have a thick layer of lemony icing and the entire thing melts in your mouth. (Those cookies along with Arizmendi Bakery's thin crust pizza led to 15 pounds of weight gain, totally worth it.)

Ingredients 

Makes 16 to 20 cookies

For the cookies:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

8 tablespoon (1 stick) butter, at room temperature (I prefer salted)

3/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons lemon zest

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the icing:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (I may have used more)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, whisk together the first four dry ingredients. Set aside. In a large bowl using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the lemon zest, egg, and vanilla. Mix in the dry ingredients on low speed until just incorporated.

Roll into ping pong sized balls and flatten, spacing about two inches apart on baking sheet. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until cookies are set and the edges start to brown. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

Whist together the lemon juice and the powdered sugar until you have a syrupy consistency. I used a pastry brush to paint on the icing. The first coat was kind of thin, so I let it dry and then painted on a second coat. Store in an air tight container and share with your friends. They are dangerously good, and if you don't take them out of the house you might eat them all.

Recipe adapted from Pham Fatale.

Santa Cruz in July

My parents came to California earlier this month and we rented a house in Santa Cruz for the 4th. It was so restorative having stress-free time with family, where we didn't have a birthday, a bridal shower, or a wedding to plan, we just got to hang out and enjoy the summer. We barbecued every day and ate out doors, took long walks, played frisbee, got to read and sew and play music and spent time at the beach. The house was massive, and perfectly accommodated our family. In addition to Jeffery and me, my parents, and Marina, my brother, his girlfriend, and her dog joined us, and my best friends Devin and Raeann stayed a couple of nights as well. We got hooked on Settlers of Catan, drank piña coladas, sautéed baby squash blossoms fresh from the garden, and ate up all the oysters we bought in Marshall. And I had a terrific eyebrow day and had to take a picture. I am really lucky to have such a great family, and I love how we spend our leisure time. Here's looking forward to many more family gatherings ahead.